Have a question for Tim?

POWAY — LaDainian Tomlinson did not ask for explanations. Nor did the Chargers provide one.

When the time came to say goodbye Monday afternoon, all those things better left unsaid were, indeed, left unsaid. LT was able to achieve closure without demanding that management detail the reasons behind his release. Most of them were obvious, and understood. None of them really needed to be enunciated.

“We all know this is a tough business,” Tomlinson said yesterday afternoon. “But sometimes the team has to make a decision (of) what’s best for the ballclub. As athletes, we need to make the best decision for us as well.”

After nine years, 12,490 rushing yards and 153 touchdowns, the Bolts’ electric glider was willing to let it go at that. He didn’t need a cost/benefit analysis concerning 30-year-old running backs and $5 million compensation packages. He didn’t belabor the deficiencies of his blocking or the de-emphasis of the ground game during the Norv Turner era. True to his training, LT read the defense and weeks of neon handwriting and recognized that he had run out of daylight in San Diego.

He plans to keep on playing. He believes reports of his demise have been exaggerated. If he is something less than he once was, he is more than willing to make a fresh start in pursuit of a championship. His future may be foggy and his time is plainly finite, but LaDainian Tomlinson can accept the Chargers’ conclusion without agreeing with it.

“I don’t want to blame our system or anything else,” he said. “But what I do know is when I’ve been given the opportunity and I’ve had the people around me that can run the football, I’ve been successful at doing it. …

“I just want an opportunity. I’m like a back coming into the league again. I just want an opportunity to prove that I can play.”

He arrived at Maderas Golf Club driving a black SUV and emerged from the vehicle in a plain white golf shirt and blue shorts, an understated ensemble set off by a silver Louis Vuitton belt buckle. Entering a gold-painted ballroom large enough for eight chandeliers and multitudinous media, Tomlinson climbed atop a temporary stage and took his place at the podium for a statement that involved no suspense but was nonetheless deemed worthy of live coverage on local radio and television.

Though Monday’s announcement had been an anticlimax, and Tomlinson had two days to digest the decision before confronting the cameras, he would break down for more than a minute after the lengthy thank-yous that served as the preamble to his news conference. With tears running parallel post routes down both of his cheeks, LT could be heard blubbering, “I said I wasn’t going to do this.”

Then, gradually regaining his composure, Tomlinson said what so many of us have sensed since the day he arrived from TCU:

“Sometimes emotions (are) what makes a person. And as you guys know, I’ve always worn my emotions on my sleeve. For that, I’m not sorry.”

If Tomlinson tended to err on the side of candor, if his body language and sideline demeanor sometimes betrayed frustrations other players strive to conceal, he has always been approachable and authentic, a superstar with no entourage and no noxious airs.

Unlike many of his contemporaries and several of his profligate teammates, Tomlinson has been primarily focused on his family and football rather than the trappings and traps of the celebrity athlete. Consequently, Chargers fans have felt an attachment to him that has transcended statistics, a connection that said this guy was a part of the community instead of apart from the community; that he was real and he was ours.

“I’m really going to miss that special bond we had together, with the (No.) 21 jerseys and the chants of ‘LT.’ ” Tomlinson said. “I’m going to miss that. It’s something that I think I’m always going to remember for the rest of my life. And I can’t put into words what it has meant for me to play in this city, to be a part of this community for nine years.

“I spent my youth here. And it’s definitely sad to leave, but I’m excited as well for the future. And so, fans, I thank you. I thank the community for allowing us to be a part of something special.”

Where he lands next is pure conjecture at this point. Tomlinson’s buddy, Drew Brees, is lobbying for the two players to be reunited in New Orleans. Bill Belichick, proprietor of a halfway house for ex-Chargers in New England, has taken much bigger risks than a player who once openly questioned his class. Philadelphia would seem a good fit with the release of Brian Westbrook.

“I don’t have to win now,” he said. “A team that’s on the rise and heading in the right direction — I could very well play for four more years.”

The NFL’s actuarial tables would argue otherwise. A 30-year-old running back whose numbers have fallen by nearly 2 yards per carry over the past three seasons bears a bulky burden of proof. LaDainian Tomlinson would tell you, though, that he has not lost as many steps as some suspect, that his statistical decline is the product of a shift in organizational orientation rather than his own personal decline.

Left unsaid is that the Chargers seem to think LT is finished as an elite player. Left undone, at least for now, is to prove them wrong.